


The Lesson

by jujubiest



Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x20 I don't know her, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Ending, Amara just wants Dean to get his shit together, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Sort Of, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: They save the world with Amara's help, but Dean still loses Cas. He tries to move on, but the regret is eating him alive. Finally, Amara comes to him with an offer: a chance to go back and relive some of his moments with Cas, and hopefully gain some closure.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051256
Comments: 10
Kudos: 131





	The Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after an alternate ending in which the deal Dean makes with Amara is the real plan: lock Chuck away so he can't keep toying with people. Cas is still taken by the Empty, but under slightly different circumstances (i.e. in the final battle against Chuck).
> 
> This is maaaybe a lime? Definitely not a lemon.
> 
> Slight warning for dubious consent due to time travel shenanigans. Everyone involved is enthusiastically consenting, but Cas doesn't know Dean is a future version of himself.
> 
> Also if you want some extra Emotions, my writing playlist for this is just "What If This Is All The Love You Ever Get" by Snow Patrol on repeat.
> 
> Also Jimmy is not there, as this is after Raphael killed Cas in s4 and Jimmy's soul would have been sent to Heaven.
> 
> Not quite a one-shot because I did read over it a few times, but unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.

In the end they reached a compromise: Amara would give Chuck one chance to stop before locking him away. And Rowena would modify the spell, both to eliminate the need for a living lock, and so that Chuck would be asleep and dreaming, not awake and suffering the way his sister had been.

Amara was too kind for her own good, in Dean’s opinion, but he wasn’t about to argue with her. Not when doing it her way meant they might finally get to be free.

 _Free_. He wasn’t sure how to process that, not yet. What it meant. What he would do with it.

The final fight was a shitshow. Something always goes wrong, as Cas said to him what seemed like a lifetime ago. In this case something went _very_ wrong. They still won, Dean reminded himself over and over in the days that followed. It could have been so much worse.

Chuck was locked away. Amara never wanted power in the first place, so she wasn’t going to pose a threat to anyone. They were free.

But Cas…Cas was gone. Whisked off to the Empty, sacrificing himself to save Dean yet again. He left Dean with three words, a bloody handprint on his shoulder, and his world turned upside down. And Dean was…

Well. He was trying very hard to remember that technically, they won. Even if it felt like he lost his heart and his soul and his future in the process.

* * *

Amara shows up in his bedroom one night, a few weeks after she supposedly left Earth for good. One minute Dean’s sitting up in bed, drowning out his thoughts with music in the hopes of getting to sleep sometime before the sun comes up…and the next the primordial embodiment of Darkness is standing at the foot of his bed with that quizzical look on her face that says she’s trying to understand him.

“Jesus Christ!” Dean yelps, nearly falling off his bed. Amara laughs softly.

“Not quite,” she says. “I’m told he was quite a bit shorter than I am.”

“Right,” Dean says, righting himself with some effort. “Uh…hi. What’s…what’s with the Eddie Haskell routine?”

Amara tilts her head in a painfully familiar gesture.

“I’m not sure I’ve met an Eddie Haskell.”

“I meant—” Dean pauses, starts again. “Nevermind. Why are you here? I mean, not to be rude. You really saved our asses. But I thought you were fucking off to Alpha Centauri.”

“I came because…” Here it’s Amara’s turn to pause. She looks _awkward,_ Dean realizes. Embarrassed, even.

“Is something wrong?” He asks, unable to help the softening of his voice. The weird, unwilling desire he used to feel toward Amara is long gone, thankfully, but he still feels this pull to ease her discomfort. _We will always help each other,_ she said to him once. “Can I do anything to help?”

The smile she turns on him is soft, so affectionate he has to look away from it.

“No, Dean,” she says. “Actually, I came here to help you. We’re…connected, still. I believe we always will be.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Amara wanders from the foot of his bed, reaching out to thumb through his records. He wonders if she’s ever actually listened to music. It’s strange, seeing her here, in this very human space of his. _You can’t imagine what we really are_ , she said to him another time, not so long ago, and he realizes she was right. There’s a human woman standing by his bed who is not a human woman, thumbing through his records with hands that are not hands, and…and it’s too damn late and he’s too damn himself to be pondering the metaphysical inner workings of primordial beings.

He doesn’t press her to continue, though. Her silence is the kind he understands, the way he understands the human parts of her…the way he will never fully understand the rest. They’re alike in ways he doesn’t want to dwell on. They’ve both been sacrificed on the altar of what their younger brother might grow to be.

“You’re unhappy, Dean,” she says at last, turning to look at him. “And your unhappiness, is…loud. Louder even than your anger. No matter where I go, I feel it.”

Dean forces himself to meet her eyes, half-afraid of what she might see there.

“I’m…trying,” he says, fighting to keep the defensiveness out of his voice. If there’s anyone who will understand, it’s probably her. “I’m doin’ my best here. But I can’t…” He can’t finish that sentence, but he doesn’t have to. Amara nods, understanding.

“I know,” she says. “I can feel it. I used to see it, see _him_ , whenever I looked inside you, trying to find what it was that kept you from reaching out for me. I saw his handprints, practically branded into your soul. It was always so baffling to me, how you could cling so hard to something and yet be so ashamed of wanting it.”

“I’m not—“ _Not ashamed,_ he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. Because he had been, and he had reasons, he knows he did…but fuck if he knows why they mattered now, when it’s too late.

“It’s okay, Dean,” she says. There’s compassion in her voice, and a hint of wistfulness perhaps, but no bitterness. Once again he feels that pang of _need_ to help her, to make her feel better. He almost wishes she had someone like Cas. Except for the part where losing him has leveled Dean and crushed the rubble into the dirt. He wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone.

“Amara—” he starts to say, but she shakes her head.

“No, don’t worry about me. I’m a lonely creature, it’s true. There’s only one other thing like me in the universe, and he’s…well, he’s a _dick,_ frankly.” She laughs, surprised and delighted, like she’s never given herself the simple pleasure of calling her brother a dick before. “I’d much rather be lonely than be shackled to him for eternity.” She steps forward, reaches out a tentative hand, brushes Dean’s hair back from his forehead. It’s a comforting gesture, and he can’t help but lean into it a little.

“But there is no reason you need to live with all this regret, Dean. I came to give you a gift.”

Dean stares up at her, scarcely breathing, afraid to hope . He’s had so many miracles. He isn’t sure he deserves another.

“I can’t change everything that happened. I can’t undo Castiel’s sacrifice. But I can give you the chance to…to say the things you needed to say to him. To undo some of the moments you most regret. I hope that will be…enough.”

He lets out the breath he was holding in a rush, feeling like he’s been punched in the gut. It’s not…it’s not what he was hoping for, exactly. He tries to fight off the feeling of disappointment. Because it’s still _something._ It’s still a chance to see Cas again, to tell him…

To tell him.

Amara looks into his eyes for a long moment, sees his answer there. _Please._

She nods once, and leans in. Dean closes his eyes as she presses a kiss to his forehead.

When he opens them, Amara is gone, and he’s…somewhere else. His room in the bunker is gone, replaced by ramshackle surroundings that look oddly familiar. He feels strangely breathless and lightheaded, as though he’s just fallen from a great height only to be saved just before he hit the bottom. And in front of him is—

_Cas._

But not his Cas, not quite. Or not _yet_. This Cas is…sharper. Colder. Less human, more angel. Younger. He never thought Cas aged much if at all, but now, looking at this living memory, he can see the difference. The angles and planes of his face are harder, less touched by time, the softness of love and the gravity of sorrow. He sits stiffly in a chair a few feet away, glancing nervously at Dean as though whatever they’re talking about is making him uncomfortable.

“I’ve never had occasion,” he says, terse and embarrassed. And all at once, it clicks for Dean.

He remembers this moment. Far too well. This was the night he and Cas summoned Raphael.

This was also the first time Dean felt—and denied—a wild urge to reach out and ask something of Cas that had nothing to do with Heaven, stopping an apocalypse, or saving Sammy. No, the something he had wanted in this moment had been wholly selfish, and he had diverted that desire into pushing Cas toward some random woman. _Named Chastity, of all things_ , he remembers with a grimace.

He knows what he did wrong here. And he knows exactly how to fix it.

“Let me tell you something,” he says, sounding more sure than he feels as he reaches out and pulls Cas to his feet. “There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are _not_ gonna die a virgin. Not on my watch.” Cas is staring at him as though mesmerized, confusion and fear and, god— _hope_ , he can see the hope and the longing there, now that he’s looking for it—warring on his face. He reaches out and doesn’t _quite_ take Cas’s hand, holding him by the wrist instead.

“Let’s go.”

He takes Cas to a hotel room. A real hotel, not some rent-by-the-hour place. Drumming up additional funds to cover the loss is a problem future Dean can worry about. He feels like lightning is dancing in his stomach the whole way there, and only the feeling of Cas’s coat sleeve still clutched under his fingers keeps him grounded. Only the way Cas follows him easily, even eagerly, keeps him from chickening out, even now, knowing these moments are all of Cas he will ever get to have.

The room is nothing special, but it’s clean and warm and private, and the walls of the place are thick enough that everyone around them doesn’t get to know their business. He wants this to be about him and Cas and nothing, no one else. He leads Cas into the room first before locking the door behind them both, and then he just…stands there for a moment. Watches Cas turn in a small circle, looking around him with interest and mild confusion.

“Dean,” he says at last. “Why are we here?” The hope in his voice is tempered with doubt that Dean is just itching to erase.

He unglues himself from the door with some effort. Takes a step forward, slow and steady. Tries to remember how to breath.

“Well,” he says, unsure of how to explain. It had seemed so obvious at first, but now he doesn’t know how to begin. How exactly does one proposition an angel of the lord? _Hey Cas, I’m from the future! Y_ _our aunt, god’s sister, sent me back in time to seduce you like I_ _always_ _wanted_ _so a decade from now you won’t die feeling like I never loved you back_. Somehow he doesn’t think that will go over well, but everything else he thinks of seems similarly too much and not enough at once.

And, he realizes, he doesn’t actually know how long these little excursions into the before times last. He could be whisked away at any moment, his purpose unfulfilled. So he bites the bullet and goes for the most honest approach that won’t require a decade’s worth of exposition.

“You said you’d never ‘had occasion,’” he says, with air quotes and everything. “Well, what better occasion than your last night on earth?” He gives Cas what he hopes is a suggestive grin, instead of just soppy and desperate as hell.

One or the other, it must work. Because in a blink, Cas is across the room and well inside his personal bubble , blue eyes searching and filled with that painful, unfiltered hope again.

“Are you certain about this, Dean?” He asks. Dean swallows hard and tries not to stare too obviously at those lips. Tries and fails.

“Certain as a heart attack,” he answers, voice gone soft and raspy with barely-checked desire. _Which is what I’m gonna have if you don’t kiss me right now,_ he thinks.

Except this Cas doesn’t know about kissing, not really. God, the only kiss he’s ever seen, as far as Dean knows, is that time he watched Dean kiss Anna goodbye.

Dean does _not_ want to think about Anna right now. Or anything other than the angel in front of him. So he leans in and does what he wanted to do the first time he lived through this night: he kisses his angel. Gently at first, just a press of lips to lips. But the effect it has on Cas is incredible. He grabs for Dean’s arms as though steadying himself against a fall, leaning easily into the kiss. Dean reaches up to cup Cas’s face in his hands. It’s a familiar gesture, but the circumstances are brand new. Every other time it’s been desperation, fear, sadness. Now it’s just…warmth. Excitement. And the smallest spark of real _joy,_ even as he worries underneath how much more broken he will be, now that he’s learning with every passing second the magnitude of what he’s lost.

Either way, that first step takes him over the cliff’s edge. There’s no going back. Kisses give way to touches, hands exploring everywhere they can reach until they fall onto the still-made bed, both gasping for more. Some part of Dean had always thought, when he allowed himself to imagine what this might be like, that his touch would ruin Cas somehow, bring him down to Dean’s level, dirty and human and broken. What he didn’t expect, never could have anticipated, is the way Cas’s touch seems to elevate him to something more than himself.

Cas touches him like he’s something holy, seems to _know_ Dean’s body in a way Dean didn’t expect but loves. And Dean quickly finds that Cas’s stoicism dissolves under his hands like fog in the sunlight, until Cas is a writhing, needy mess underneath him. He revels in that image: Cas, on his back, hair hopelessly mussed and pupils blown wide, hands reaching for Dean and his name on those lips like a prayer, a psalm, a benediction.

Then Cas reaches up, fits his fingers to the brand on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean’s whole body arcs into him, flashes of long-buried memory resurfacing for the first time: blood and lightning, the screams of the damned, a searing pain on his shoulder, and a voice, a voice that could shatter glass: _Dean Winchester is saved._

Cas has peered into his very _soul._ Ridiculous, that Dean was so afraid of letting him too close to his body. But now he welcomes Cas inside without hesitation, and looks into wide blue eyes, and feels like he’s home.

* * *

The second memory surprises him. It isn’t a happy one, not by a long shot. But then, so few of his memories are.

He’s behind the wheel of his car, Cas sitting quiet and troubled at his side. Dean can _feel_ the swirl of anger and bitterness he felt back then, the urge to rail at an uncaring god that this wasn’t _fair._ That his brother was too high a price to pay for the whole world. That he’d trade them all, all seven billion of the bastards, in exchange for Sam.

He’s far enough removed from this version of himself to be horrified by that, now. But only just.

“You’re angry,” Cas says, and that clues Dean into where they are in this conversation. The last they’ll have for over a year, when Cas will come back already up to his eyeballs in a bad deal with Crowley.

 _A deal he made for you,_ Dean reminds himself.

He can’t change it, Amara said. He can’t spare either of them the loneliness, the desperation and heartache, of the next two years. But maybe he can let Cas know, before it starts. That he matters. That he’s more than a tool or a soldier.

“Yeah, I’m angry,” he says, letting it all out in a sigh that feels like it pulls years of his life away with it. “But not at you, Cas. You gotta know that.” He glances over, meets Cas’s eyes. “None of this was your fault.”

He looks back at the road, but can feel Cas’s eyes still on him.

“You miss Sam,” he says. It’s not a question. Dean huffs a laugh that is utterly without humor.

“Yeah, I miss Sam.” He can feel it, the hole his brother’s sacrifice left. Even if he knows Sam is really back at the bunker, safe and sound, the memory of that loss is never going to fully leave him. “But Cas…I need you to hear me. If I had Sam back right this second, it still wouldn’t be right if you weren’t there, too. There’s no…happily every after for me that doesn’t include you. I mean it. Whatever else happens, whatever else we do or however we fuck up…I need you to remember that.”

Cas’s eyes are still on him, lingering for a long time. Then the air shifts, and with a flurry of wings he’s gone.

“You still suck at goodbyes,” Dean mutters.

* * *

The third memory is a dark room, windows scrawled with bloody sigils, and a sick pit of dread in Dean’s stomach. He’s asleep, dreaming of Cas’s face lit from below by holy fire. The way he surged toward Dean, drawn like a magnet, eyes begging him to stay even as his mouth yelled for Dean to run. It felt like wrenching away a part of himself, leaving Cas there.

The relief he feels when he wakes to the flutter of wingbeats is no less intense for it being the second time he’s lived this particular memory.

A part of him thought, back then, that the demons were coming for Cas. That when he left him in that ring of fire, he would never see him again. His relief at being wrong the first time around was so dizzying it almost wiped out the sting of Cas’s betrayal. Almost.

But that other Dean, past Dean, he already had his say. And nothing he said worked. Nothing got fixed. This time, Dean is determined to do better. If this is one of the precious handful of moments Dean will ever get to spend with Cas again, he’s going to make sure they count.

“Hello Dean.” Cas says. Dean doesn’t say anything. He crosses the room and pulls Cas to him with both arms, crushing him in a hug tight enough that it would probably bruise if Cas weren’t nearly indestructible.

“Man, am I glad to see you,” he whispers into Cas’s hair, still holding onto him. Cas isn’t holding back, but then…Dean didn’t really start being a hugger with him until two years later, the first time around. He probably doesn’t know how.

“Bobby’s angel-proofing—“ Cas starts to say, but Dean interrupts him.

“Yeah, it’s not great.” He pulls back and just drinks in the sight of his angel, alive and whole and still stiff with righteousness and uncertainty. He knows Cas betrayed them. He knows everything he did and everything he’s about to do. And god help him, he loves the bastard so much he thinks it might be the end of him.

Cas is looking at him with wide, worried eyes. Dean suddenly remembers how Cas used to seem to just _know_ what he was thinking, like he could read his mind. He feels his face flush and is glad of the darkness in the room.

The first time they were here, he did everything wrong. He pulled a because-I-said-so on Cas when he was desperate and afraid and in over his head. And stubborn, _god_ Cas was so fucking stubborn. It was never going to work, and Dean was never going to do anything else.

But he’s not that Dean, is he.

“Cas, listen,” he says, running soothing hands down Cas’s arms when he feels his angel tensing up, expecting more recriminations, probably.

“I know you think you have to do this thing. I know Raphael is giving you no other choice. And I…I know you think you’re doing this for me. But listen, Cas…I don’t want this.”

Cas opens his mouth as if to argue, and Dean, feeling brave, reaches out to brush those lips with his fingers, stopping the words before they can escape.

“I know, okay? I know how hard it is to know what the right thing is. I know what it feels like to have only bad choices. But I know in my gut, man…if you do this, you will regret it. For the rest of your life. So I’m asking you…if you’re really doing this for me, then stop _f_ _or me_. Please.”

“And…” Cas pauses, as though unsure whether he wants to continue. “And…if I don’t stop? What then?”

“Then…” Dean shrugs, helpless. He knows it’s going to happen either way. He isn’t going to change Cas’s mind in a single conversation, undo the damage of a year of Crowley’s lies hissed in his ears in a few minutes. It stings a little, knowing he’s going to fail.

But that was never the point. He takes a deep breath, and takes Cas’s hand in his.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll…” he looks into Cas’s eyes, sees the way he’s braced for a blow. “I’ll be here, either way. If it all goes great, you can come say ‘I told you so.’ And if it all goes to hell, well…come to me first, okay? Ask me for help and I’ll be there. No conditions.”

He knows it’s true, even of his past self. When Cas showed up needing help, nothing else mattered. He was always going to forgive him. God, he was so gone, even then, and he didn’t even know it.

But Cas is looking at him like he doesn’t know who he is. Dean shrinks away from that, inwardly. Did he really come off like such an immovable bastard, that this seems so completely out of character?

 _Yeah,_ he answers his own question. _Yeah, I really fuckin’ did. Sorry, Cas._

It’s an apology his Cas never got to hear, but it’s not just for him. It’s for this Cas too, and all the others in every other moment, waiting for an acknowledgment from Dean that never came.

He squeezes Cas’s hand, once, briefly. His fingers close on thin air.

* * *

On the fourth memory, he starts to wonder why it has to be _these_ moments he remembers, instead of any of the good ones.

So many of these seem to be goodbyes of one kind or another. But then, that’s what all of this is, right? One big drawn-out, ass-backwards goodbye because Dean didn’t get his shit together when Cas was alive.

He pushes that aside. Looks at Cas, sitting next to him, those eyes soft and full of regret. This year put them through hell, he remembers. Naomi, the mess with the angel tablet. Dean’s anger at Cas for not trusting him…the lingering hurt from realizing Cas would rather die alone in Purgatory than live and stay with Dean.

And here he is again, saying goodbye. Dean remembers swallowing down a question, strangling it into silence. Unwilling to ask for what wasn’t being offered. But maybe that was part of their problem: Dean never asked.

“Cas,” he says softly. “I…I don’t want you to go.”

Cas’s intake of breath is sharp, surprised. It _hurts_ that it’s so surprised. Dean pushes the hurt aside for now. There’ll be time for that later, with all his other grief. He reaches out under the bar, finds Cas’s hand. Twines their fingers together and holds tight.

“You’re always leaving me, man.” His voice is hoarse and there are tears pricking at his eyes. He blinks them away. “I understand if you feel like it’s what you gotta do, and maybe I’m just bein’ selfish. But…I wish you’d stay. Here, with me.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, just stares and stares at him, as though he doesn’t believe what Dean is saying. Dean wills him to believe it. Wills this to change things, even as some part of him knows it won’t.

* * *

On the fifth memory Dean has to fight back a sob. He knows he wasn’t going to be able to change things, he _knows._ But the more of these moments he relives, the harder it’s getting to accept that _this_ is all he’ll ever have. It’s better than nothing, miles better…and it’s worse at the same time. Getting these small, stolen moments to tell Cas how he feels, to make sure Cas knows he’s not just _needed_ but _wanted._ He’s not sure he’s doing enough and he’s afraid to do more, and none of it seems to matter because _nothing changes_.

Cas is about to go on a date with some woman he barely knows, and Dean just finished making him look good for it. He remembers the surge of jealousy, the guilty hunger he felt as he watched Cas unbutton his shirt, wanting to let him keep going until it fell open, wanting to reach out and touch.

But he pushed him toward some woman instead. It’s becoming a pattern with him.

So what if Dean breaks it?

“Cas,” he says, for the second time that night. “Wait, I can’t…I can’t let you do this.”

Cas pauses, one hand on the door, looking back at him with a frown, equal parts confused and impatient.

“What, Dean?” He snaps, just a little. It’s nerves mostly, Dean knows that. But something in the way Cas says his name has Dean clamming up again. Just like he did the first time.

 _No,_ he thinks. _Come on. What if this is the last memory? What if this is your absolute last chance to tell him how you feel?_

“I…” Dean starts. Breathes. Tries again. “I don’t want you to go on a date with some woman you don’t even know,” he manages at last, face flushing to his hairline.

“I see,” Cas says. He hasn’t taken his hand off the door, but he hasn’t told Dean to fuck off yet, either. Dean clings to that and pushes on.

“What if…what if we went somewhere instead? Just us.”

Cas considers him for a long moment. Then he takes his hand off the door.

Dean breathes.

“Let me just…I should tell Nora…”

“Right, of course,” Dean says. “Sure, no problem.”

He watches Cas go up to the front door, feeling elated. He’ll take them somewhere they can watch the stars, he thinks. Or maybe he can ask what Cas would like to do. He’ll figure it out, just as soon as…

Cas is back, looking worried. Dean’s stomach tightens.

“Um,” Cas says, leaning into the car without getting in. “There seems to have been a…misunderstanding. Nora was not seeking a date.” He’s avoiding Dean’s eyes, looking embarrassed.

“Okay,” Dean says slowly. “So what does she need?”

The look Cas fixes him with would be comical if it weren’t so miserable.

“A babysitter.”

And, well. It’s not the date he hoped for, sure. But Dean’s always been good with kids.

Ten minutes of anxious explaining later—“I didn’t realize your son was so young, my uh, friend has more experience with babysitting actual babies,” et cetera—Nora is off on her date and probably, Dean thinks, under the impression that she left her child in the care of an old married gay couple.

He doesn’t think too closely about how little that bothers him. He’s too busy showing Cas the proper way to hold a newborn. It’s not that Cas is terrible at it, mind, but Dean’s got—how old is Sammy?—thirty years of parenting experience on him, give or take. It doesn’t help that the kid is clearly colicky, and Cas is panicking about it. He spends the better part of the night calming his angel down with half his attention while handling the baby with the other half, and just barely manages to keep Cas from calling an ambulance over a little fever.

But when the kid is finally asleep, held carefully in Cas’s arms as Dean hums an off-key rendition of “Tangerine,” there’s a moment. He looks at Cas, and Cas looks at him, and it hits Dean all at once: they’ll never have this. They’ll never look at each other, tired but happy, over the head of a sleeping kid that’s theirs. They’ll never hold another wordless conversation over Jack’s head, either. They’ll never take Claire out to lunch and prod her about whatever has her listening to sad music and taxing Jody’s nerves more than usual.

And at the same time, it hits him that it didn’t have to be that way. That he and Cas could have had something like this, if they wanted it. If they talked about it. If he ever acknowledged what they were to each other, what they had been all along.

He holds the tears at bay, determined not to spoil this perfect moment for Cas if it’s all they ever get to have. But he wonders, for the first time, whether Amara’s gift was a gift at all, or a curse.

* * *

When he wakes up in the sixth memory, he can feel at once that something is very wrong.

He’s so _angry._ So angry he could kill. The taste of sulfur burns in the back of his throat.

And no. No, he doesn’t want to live any of these memories again. These moments when he was at his absolute worst, when every bit of pain and anger and heartache he’d ever felt converged and rose up and took him over, body and soul, and it became a game to him, to see how much he could hurt the people he loved.

All made so much worse by the fact that he _still loved them_. Even in the midst of it, soul choked and blackened with smoke, the Mark twisting and tearing at him, he loved them: Sam and Cas.

But demons destroy what they love. It’s why they’re demons.

And Cas is looking at him, sorrow and determination in his eyes, one hand warm on his shoulder, gently restraining.

Cas is trying to save him. And stop him. And he needs to be stopped, but he wishes they would all just _stop_ trying to save him. Because he knows what it costs. He’s living _proof_ of what it costs. And he’d rather kill Cas now than watch him slowly immolate himself on the altar of Dean Winchester’s salvation.

Dean watches himself as though he’s two people. He watches his hands batter Cas around the room like a rag doll, and screams at Cas to fight back. But whatever the Mark was made of, it’s stronger than him, stronger than this gift or curse from Amara, because he has no power in this memory. No power to change even the smallest thing. He can only watch.

And as he watches Cas reach out for him, begging for his life, he knows that he was wrong before: if Cas dies now, that’s it. Game over. At least if he kills himself slowly it gives Dean second and third and fourth chances to stop it from happening. He’d rather do anything, anything in the world than ever watch Cas die again, die for _him_ again. He’d throw himself back into Hell itself, and gladly at that.

Thankfully, the memory ends as soon as he buries the angel blade in the book next to Cas’s head.

* * *

Another memory. Another sad goodbye, and Dean thinks maybe he’s _in_ Hell. At least this time he’s the one who’s dying.

He’s in the back seat of his car, Cas beside him, Sam at the wheel. He can feel power pulsing inside him, cold and sharp, waiting to rush out and leave him behind, a hollowed-out husk. He’s a walking time bomb, literally for once in his life, and he’s on his way to save the world. Or so he thinks.

It’s strange. Next to all the knowledge and feelings of this Dean, past-Dean, is him and everything he knows. About Chuck. About Amara. He’s tempted, for a crazy moment, to blow it all sky high after all. Just end it then and there. The world would recover. Cas and Sam would both be alive and free. No deals with the Empty, no more running around like a rat in Chuck’s cage.

 _No Jack, either,_ his mind whispers. _No Mary. And who knows what else might change._

He thinks of the world where Michael won, and shudders. That world was night and day to this one, and all because one scared nineteen-year-old girl didn’t make a deal. The deal that saved her husband and the world, but doomed her sons.

Dean feels a rush of sympathy for his mom, for the weight placed on her choices. It wasn’t fair to put all that on a kid. And that’s what she had been: just a scared kid, alone in the world, and desperate.

He looks over at Cas and, without really thinking, takes the hand resting between them on the seat. Cas looks at him, stricken, as though he knows Dean wouldn’t do this if he weren’t being driven to his death.

He wants to tell Cas it’s okay, he isn’t going to die here today, this isn’t goodbye. But he knows he can’t do that. He can’t make up for all the moments he wasted before today and he can’t fix all the moments he knows he’ll waste after. He can’t even promise Cas those moments will be there for them to waste. So he does all he can: he makes the most of this one.

He reaches across the space between them and pulls Cas face to his, presses a badly-aimed kiss to the corner of his mouth. Cas stares at him, startled, then reaches up and undoes his seat belt, surging across the seat to wrap Dean up in his arms.

If Sam notices, he doesn’t say anything, and Dean closes his eyes and resolves not to let himself care either way. He curls into Cas’s arms like he belongs there. He _does_ belong there.

And when they reach their destination, and it’s time to say goodbye? Dean reaches deep down in himself for a kind of courage he’s rarely ever tapped: the courage of the living, rather than the dying.

When Cas embraces him for what he believes will be the last time, Dean whispers in his ear. Three little words.

On and on it goes. Moments he had something to say and stayed silent. Moments he said the wrong thing instead of the right one. Moments he held onto his anger at being left behind instead of forgiving the person who always came back. Moments where he wanted, and didn’t ask. Moments where he meant “love” and said “need” because love was dangerous, love got people killed.

So many moments, big and small, some lasting hours and others, only a handful of seconds. So many chances to let Cas know he was loved. So many moments to let Cas love him.

And with each one, he fears it will be the last.

Until, of course, he reaches the last. And then he knows.

“Cas,” he hears himself saying, choking it out around the lump in his throat. “Don’t do this.” And no. No! He can’t live through this moment again. He won’t survive it.

He barely survived it the first time.

But he can’t get out, and he can’t stop anything. Everything is closing in on them, Chuck and the Empty, enemies on both sides. And Cas is looking at him like he’s precious, like he’s _worth_ dying for, and Dean can’t do it again, he _can’t._

Amara will save the world, just like she promised. Jack and Sam will have each other, and Eileen, and the rest of their weird little patchwork family. But he has no future without Cas, no happy ending. The world doesn’t need him to save it, not this time.

So he takes a leap of faith. He grabs Cas and pulls him close, fights as he feels Cas attempting to throw him off. He digs his hands into that stupid trenchcoat until his fingers hurt, and squeezes his eyes shut, and hangs on for dear life.

“I’ll go with you,” he says into Cas’s neck, angry and insistent through gritted teeth. “Cas, stop. I’m going with you.”

There are hot tears running down his face, and he’s not sure if they’re his or Cas’s. Something cold is stealing around and into him, cold as an open grave and twice as dark and deep. He feels Cas’s hands digging painfully into his arms, dragging at them, still trying to throw him off, throw him to safety and the slow death of a long life without him. Dean smiles, grim and determined, because he knows it’s too late. The Empty may have Cas, but he’s coming too.

“It’s okay, Cas,” he says, though his own voice sounds very far away. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

The Empty closes in. Cas’s arms tighten around him, pulling him in at last.

For a moment, Dean Winchester feels peace.

Then: nothing.

* * *

Dean opens his eyes expecting total darkness, and blinks in confusion at the familiar ceiling of his room in the bunker. He’s lying on his back in his bed, almost as though he never left. There’s a warm weight pressed along his left side.

He holds his breath, afraid to look, afraid to hope. But the person next to him shifts, raises their head. Mumbles his name, sounding groggy and confused and _perfect._

“Dean?”

Dean’s breath is caught in his chest, fighting for space with a heart that’s suddenly pounding fit to burst . He turns his head, sits up, staring, staring, staring, drinking it in. Cas is next to him, struggling into a sitting position, looking around the room as though unsure of how he got here, or whether this is real.

Dean’s half-wondering that himself. He’s relived a lot of Cas-moments lately, after all. But this? This isn’t a memory. They’ve never been here, like this, next to each other in his bed . Which can only mean…

“Yes, Dean,” says a gently amused voice. “It’s real.”

He turns to see Amara, still standing at the foot of his bed. Without thinking, he reaches out blindly for Cas. A warm hand finds his, holds on tight. He remembers how to breathe.

“How?” It’s the only thing he can seem to get out, and Jesus does it even _matter_? _Cas is here_ , and Amara is smiling at him like…like she’s proud of him. Like he did something really, really right.

“I thought…” he stops, swallows hard. “I thought you said…I could only have—“

“I lied,” Amara says lightly, totally unrepentant. “I was always going to give you back to each other.”

“Then what was with the trip down memory lane?” He wants to get angry, but it’s hard to do when he can still feel Cas’s warmth at his shoulder, his hand in Dean’s, one thumb brushing distractingly over his knuckles. Still…he’s been played with by cosmic beings enough for several lifetimes. He thinks he can muster up some indignation on principle alone. “Was it some kind of…of _game_? Or…”

Amara is shaking her head, smiling. She knows he knows.

“…a lesson.” He finishes, the anger rising more easily now. He still remembers Amara’s last lesson, vividly. Still remembers how much it hurt to have his image of his mother shattered, to rebuild something with her only to lose her all over again.

Then again…he also hasn’t forgotten how _good_ it was, even for the short time he had it. To know his mom as a person, messy and complicated as she was, instead of just a perfect memory.

“Yes,” Amara says. “It was a lesson, Dean. Forgive me, it seems to be a habit of mine, trying to teach you things. I only wanted to be sure you would appreciate the gift. That you wouldn’t squander it.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. Hell, after living through _so many_ moments when he let his hang-ups or his fear get in the way of saying and doing what he really wanted, telling Cas how he really _felt…_ it’s hard to argue with her logic. Which is its own kind of annoying.

Damn cosmic beings. At least this one seems to just want him to be happy. He hopes.

Amara seems to know what he’s thinking. She holds up her hands, placating.

“No more lessons after this, I promise. I think you’ve all had enough meddling. And I like to think you know what you want now…and won’t waste any more time going after it.”

She looks pointedly at Cas. Dean feels his face heat up, and says nothing.

“Come to think of it, you’re technically my nephew, aren’t you,” she says to Cas. “So if Dean doesn’t treat you well, I suppose it would be my familial duty to smite him for you.”

She’s teasing. Dean’s pretty sure she’s teasing. Not that he ever has any plans to find out. He turns to Cas, finds him so close their noses nearly touch, eyes shining with mirth and love and there’s that _hope_ again. Hope that they’ll finally get to have something, that Dean will finally _let them_ have something.

Once upon a time, Dean would have moved back and grumbled about personal space.

But that Dean didn’t know what it was like to _lose_ Cas, really lose him . Or how good it felt to just let himself _want_ him, instead of deflecting every desire, shutting down every impulse.

That Dean didn’t know what it felt like to watch those eyes fill with tears and hear “I love you” from those lips.

“Thank you,” he whispers to Amara, his eyes never leaving Cas’s face. _Thank you._

He doesn’t hear her leave, exactly. But there’s a shift in the air, like stepping out from beneath a shadow. And they’re alone.

Just him and Cas.

Dean still isn’t sure he deserves this many miracles. But if he’s learned anything, it’s that life is too heartbreakingly short to keep punishing and denying himself.

He wants to reach for Cas, and he does. He wants to ask Cas to stay, and he does.

He wants to tell Cas he loves him. So he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Cas remembers everything, both the original memories and the ones Dean changed. And he and Dean will probably talk about it at some point, but I have too many other plotbunnies to write all that.
> 
> I hate the idea of Amara being lonely for eternity, so which SPN lady should Amara find her kindred spirit in? Let me know in the comments!


End file.
